


Following the Future

by GealachGirl



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Dual POV, Flashbacks, Fortune Telling, I promise they're really fucking dumb, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild canon divergence, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 03, Truth or Dare, casual and mild urban fantasy, high hope, low angst, soulmate au kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26375641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GealachGirl/pseuds/GealachGirl
Summary: Fortune-telling magic is the least reliable kind and their relationship is finally settled, but Foggy still wants to know why Matt is his future and Matt still needs to find his soulmate.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 97
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	Following the Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkforhumanhands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkforhumanhands/gifts).



> God this got weird, but I've been dying to write another soulmate au so...
> 
> This is my gift for hxcpanda! I'm very sorry it's so late, but I hope it's worth the wait. Your prompts were all fantastic. 
> 
> prompts used: fortune teller, Nelson and Murdock office truth or dare, and rush (sort of)
> 
> It might make things easier to know: The guys were 15 when they had their futures told and 22 when they met/started law school.

_Present_

The clink of glasses and a bubble of laughter pulled Foggy back into the room where all of his favorite people were gathered.

As usual, his eyes pulled toward Matt. Something in his chest pulled, too, deep and familiar. Foggy couldn’t help the small pang that rang alongside it whenever he felt the first.

He still didn’t know what it meant, and looking at the healing scrape on Matt’s temple, he ignored the sour doubt he ever would.

Matt’s face swiveled toward him and the wide grin softened and shrank to a more private smile that made Foggy’s breath catch. He looked so happy.

A different pang, younger but also familiar, hit him.

Matt tilted his head and when his eyebrows pinched together, Foggy had to remind himself Matt couldn’t read his mind. His heart had just beat weird or something. Or maybe he could hear the air getting stuck in Foggy’s throat. Or feel that it hadn’t come out. Or…

“All good, Matty?” he asked quietly instead of traveling down that rabbit hole. Matt nodded and Foggy was relieved to watch the concern fade from his face. Communicating across a loud, crowded room was a benefit it had taken him too long to appreciate. They’d have to work on making it useful.

Instead of everything else, Foggy sank into the feeling of rightness. The feeling of having Matt back, and this time to stay.

Even if he didn’t know how Matt fit into his future, he knew he did. He’d known it years before they’d even met.

Matt swallowed around a tight throat and the guilt bubbling through his belly. Instead he tried to focus on the new steady feeling he had under him, separate from the one he usually reached for.

Laughter and conversations drifted around him, warm and buzzing into his chest and spreading through his whole body. Some of the most important people in his life were with him, and it was all stable for now.

It wasn’t just the victory over Fisk or the satisfaction of having his friends safe and happy. It went deeper, and Matt hadn’t had the chance to explore it much yet. 

Matt had leaned on that older ground for years—since he was a teenager—even though it was more of a promise than a reality. 

And here, with his best friend’s heartbeat and voice in the same room as him—right after having Foggy stand at his shoulder, believing in him—Matt wondered if the steadiness he got from Foggy was enough. If he could stop relying on the promise of his soulmate.

It seemed possible.

_Thirteen Years in the past_

“No,” Foggy said, laughing at the sight of the folded paper in his cousin’s hands. His protest wasn’t real, though.

“Pick a color, Frankie,” she ordered, holding out the paper pyramid. Yellow, red, blue…

“Did you put _black_ on the cootie catcher?” he asked. Candace’s expression said _Clearly_ and he had to ask, “Why?”

“That’s not the only thing I put on it,” she said, grinning. “Pick a color, Franklin.”

Foggy was positive he didn’t want to know what she meant by that.

“Red.” It was the shortest choice, and Candace was obviously unimpressed with his lack of enthusiasm, but she dutifully spelled it out and presented the four numbers he had to choose from. 

He sighed, though he didn’t mean that either. “Thirteen.”

He could have chosen 39, 44 or 56 too. And, really, he was starting to think this was building to something more important than he’d expected.

At “thirteen,” the fortune teller was opened the other way from when she’d presented the numbers. But that didn’t matter anyway because the numbers had all been replaced with symbols. He’d watched it happen as she opened and closed the catcher.

“How?” he hissed. His eyes snapped to hers and she smiled.

“I put magic on it,” she said as she started grinning. “And I didn’t write the fortunes, or the numbers or the symbols.”

The magic had. He stared.

“Honestly, Foggy, I said a few words to unlock the catcher’s potential. It’s not like I poured magic power into it.” She couldn’t, that was the truth. And she sounded exasperated Foggy wasn’t remembering that.

With a fortune teller like this, power didn’t really matter anyway. It was a weak form of fortune-telling magic; anyone could say the words to give the fortunes authenticity. The folded-paper device wouldn’t be able to handle power poured into it.

Still, this meant that whatever flap was lifted, he’d be seeing a piece of his actual future. No sense of what or when or how significant this piece would be—which was why this game was a game—but still.

She shook the cootie catcher at him. “Pick a symbol.”

Foggy took stock of his options. They didn’t make sense to him. Coins, a straight line, a skull…

He pointed at the crossed lines, Candace oohed the way any good cousin should and then she pulled the flap open.

His fortune materialized in a handful of seconds: devil’s horns over the scales of justice.

Huh.

**

“Hey, kid.”

Matt clamped down on his instinct to swing and dialed his senses toward the voice instead. It was low, scratchy, accompanied by the smell of alcohol and faint body odor. But as he paid more attention, he figured out the alcohol was old and this man’s heartbeat was elevated. Not much, but it was noticeable.

He carefully positioned himself out of grabbing range, covered it up as the blind kid fumbling in surprise. It didn’t help when the strange man’s hand lashed out and grabbed his sleeve anyway.

Before Matt could do anything about it, the man tugged him closer. He could feel the man’s breath on his skin and hear the steady-but-elevated rate of his heart, and he had to fight the urge to fight.

“Ahh, yes, that is what I was sensing. You’ve got a soulmate.”

Matt’s thoughts spun to a stop. “What?”

“A soulmate, a destined partner. You’ve got the aura of it.”

When his thoughts started again, they flickered over five years of living in an orphanage, shuffled between foster families. Kids at school either avoiding him or calling him names.

Before he’d been stopped, he was taking the long way back to a house filled with three other fosters and the feeling of combined years of simmering neglect and abuse. Every second he spent there felt like living beside active volcanoes. 

Matt had no idea what the man meant, but a part of him instantly liked the implication.

He had a soulmate.

While the Church accepted magic, any kind of future-telling was generally frowned upon. You shouldn’t know your future before it happened and you should allow God to work in your life.

But Matt had been cutting the corners on the Church’s rules for a long time and he didn’t figure he was going to stop anytime soon. Surely this wouldn’t count anyway since he hadn’t sought this guy out. He’d had his future told to him and it was too vague to actually be useful.

He had a soulmate. 

“How will I tell it’s them?” he asked.

“What kind of dumbass question is that?” the man snarked. But his voice didn’t carry the heat Matt’s foster father’s did, and it didn’t sound nearly as impatient as some teachers when they had to readjust their teaching to include him.

“What kind of person can’t tell who their soulmate is? You feel it, kid.” The man’s heart beat steady and the conviction in his voice led Matt to believe him.

He had a soulmate.

_Seven Years After/Six Years Earlier_

The heat in the room was just this side of unpleasant, and Foggy moved past a huddle of bodies that only made it worse.

It wasn’t easy, either. The packed space and dim lights kept Foggy’s arm up to protect his drink and he constantly shifted his attention between it and his thin path through the crowd.

As he marveled at his luck, his shoulder slammed into an immovable object and the laws of physics worked against him.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he told the immovable object, which was actually another student. His plastic cup clattered unhelpfully when passers-by kicked it across the floor. 

The guy turned around and Foggy’s eyes zeroed in on the white cane. His heart plummeted to the floor and he barely restrained himself from apologizing again.

Thick, dark eyebrows pinched together over sunglasses. His soft smile was adorable. The whole picture made Foggy feel even worse, but it shifted more toward embarrassment and away from guilt.

“Hey, you didn’t do it on purpose. Don’t worry,” the guy said. Cheap vodka was seeping into his clothes and he was being _polite_. Foggy wanted a hole to open up under him.

Another burst of laughter, from the other side of the room, stole their attention. But Foggy’s slipped past the cluster of students to the girl stumbling along at the back, bracing herself against the wall. Oddly, the blind guy seemed to be focused on it, too.

Foggy worked up something to say, but before he got a chance the guy was in motion, tapping his way across the floor, directly toward the girl.

His hand landed on her elbow, pulling her attention to him, just in time to block the big guy Foggy hadn’t noticed from reaching for her.

The smile on Foggy’s vodka-soaked stranger’s face was smooth and charming, all for the girl in front of him. The big guy looked stunned, and then furious.

Before deciding to, Foggy found himself striding over there. He thought he was right in time, too, because the big guy chose that moment to lift his big hand.

And then there was a crash and the guy was on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling. The room quieted to stare, but Foggy couldn’t look away from the blind guy.

For a split second—before it disappeared behind exaggerated confusion—his lips were curled up and his shoulders were set in a way they hadn’t been before.

Everyone knew fortune-telling magic was the least reliable kind, but Foggy’s skin shivered and he remembered that game he’d played forever ago.

The last panel he’d picked, the reveal of devil’s horns over the scales of justice. The promise that it was his future. No indication of what that actually meant because the vaguer fortune-telling was, the better for the people doing it.

But Foggy looked at this man, the smirk on his face and the red sweater that said ‘Columbia Law,’ and he knew this man was what the fortune teller had told him about.

_Present_

Foggy’s laugh and his light, happy heartbeat bounced through the room, taking all the effort out of tracking him.

It was a glorious sensation and Matt _basked_ in it, feeling it like the first rays of spring sun after a long winter. For the moment, all of their problems were locked away or too far to have much impact.

Matt cherished it because he couldn’t shake how close he’d come to losing it all. Holding on was now his first priority.

“Matt?”

The world around him filtered back into focus and Matt turned his head toward the sound, eyebrows lifted.

“You didn’t process a word I just said, did you?” The accusation was light, mostly exasperated. Matt threw Foggy a smile, innocent as he could make it.

“You didn’t ask if I heard you,” he pointed out, puzzled.

“I know you heard me, you hear everything. The question is if you’re paying attention,” Foggy said in his eyeroll voice. “I’m rolling my eyes by the way. Can’t believe you’re ignoring me, your best friend in the world.”

Matt smiled through the rambling and chose a gap to ask, “Would you mind repeating yourself?”

“Only for you, Matty.” The swish of air through Foggy’s hair as he shook his head, cushioned by the tone of his voice. “I said that, since we’re working late, I was thinking we could shell out for a big spread of takeout like we used to.”

Despite rebuilding in their old neighborhood, getting the second iteration of their practice off the ground was taking as much work as it had the first time around. Then, and in law school, on particularly busy nights, they’d put out orders to different kinds of cheap takeout places and feast as they buried themselves in briefs and precedents.

Those nights were some of Matt’s fondest memories. Talking, laughing, feeling that sunshine glow of warmth.

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” And if his voice stretched with how much he wanted it, Matt was starting to accept it. “I’d love to, Fogs.”

Foggy barely needed to reply, Matt could sense his happiness radiating from him. It slotted into that place under Matt’s ribs, building up the solid place under his feet.

**

Foggy was over the moon. This felt like a victory of some kind and he wasn’t sure yet if that was sad or totally justified. But he did know Matt was sitting across the desk from him, eating noodles from their favorite Italian place, poring over cases and looking like he could be twenty-four for all that the image had changed.

Of course this Matt had more muscles and more scars and more baggage. But Foggy found that he, oddly, didn’t care about that as much anymore. It just didn’t seem so important as it used to.

All that mattered was having him back.

Matt was his future. He still didn’t know what that meant, but Foggy hadn’t forgotten. And he wasn’t going to turn his back on Matt being in his present.

Besides, he’d gotten kind of attached to the guy, despite the lying and purposeful distancing. With some perspective, and not a small amount of relief, Foggy found himself understanding.

But there was a way to learn more. At least a light-hearted one, which seemed like the safest path to getting Matt to open up at all. 

God bless Karen Page for bringing it up before Foggy had to figure out the way to do it.

“Truth or dare?” Matt asked, and Foggy didn’t even have to see the doubt in his expression. 

“Come on, Matt, it’ll be fun,” Karen said, grabbing his sleeve and tugging at it. “Just some dumb fun for the end of this dumb week.”

“At the end of a dumb month,” Foggy added.

Matt sighed, but it was a lot less convincing than he probably hoped. “I don’t know if this particular game is a good idea.”

The warning in his voice was justified of course. All of their truths were touchy and it was hard to think of good dares for a group of people who regularly faced down criminals and had survived two rounds with Wilson Fisk.

“We don’t have to play with magic,” Karen offered. There was that, too.

“But where’s the fun in that?” Foggy protested. He wondered if the magic binding a person to their choice was where Matt drew the line, that whichever option you picked, the magic ensured you had to follow through.

Matt stayed quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Foggy watched his jaw work for a few moments before he changed his mind.

Maybe it would be more fun if there was less chance of an interrogation. That didn’t quite get rid of the itch under Foggy’s skin though.

He didn’t know why, if it was genuine curiosity or he just wanted to hurt himself, but he wanted to dig now that he’d seen more of his best friend. He wanted to peel back the parts of Matt he’d never known about before, and maybe, finally figure out what being in his life was supposed to mean.

“Alright, non-magic truth or dare it is,” Karen said.

“Sounds perfect,” Matt told her through an easy smile.

**

Matt was surprised. He’d expected someone to grill him on details about where he’d disappeared to after Midland Circle, or for more information about what happened with Fisk or Poindexter. Or maybe more about Sister Maggie or his plans for Daredevil.

It wasn’t any of that.

It was asking about first dates, first kisses, what Jessica Jones was really like, if he’d ever met the Avengers, if he wanted to meet any of the Avengers.

The dares were equally harmless. He had to hold a handstand for as long as he could, he had to catch—or dodge, they couldn’t account for aim—random things Foggy and Karen threw at him, he had to do as many pushups as he could in two minutes.

The whole night followed that vein. In all directions. And Matt could honestly say he hadn’t felt this close to his friends in years.

Eventually, Karen got a call, got strangely flustered and begged off without any explanation—despite it being her turn and Foggy and Matt demanding the truth.

Which left him and Foggy alone with a tableful of leftovers and a moderate amount of work left.

“What do you think,” Foggy asked, “should we stay and push through?”

“I think it’s at a good stopping point,” Matt admitted, though he wasn’t sure he was ready to put all of this to a stop yet. Seized by an irresistible impulse, and spurred on by his need to build layers on this solid ground, he said, “We should keep hanging out though.” For emphasis, he leaned back and searched for the leftover halva by smell.

It wasn’t that he wanted to keep talking, really, but he sort of did. Something in the air made him want more. Besides, Foggy also seemed less-than-willing to leave. He was proved right when his friend sank back into his chair and grabbed what smelled like tiramisu.

“I can probably do that,” he sighed, smiling around the exaggerated sound. Matt grinned.

Foggy was warm and comfortable, and the distance between them had closed back to that barely there gap Matt had always loved. And this, what they were doing tonight, was the relaxed Foggy he’d always loved.

Matt had run away from that last truth, too. For so many reasons.

None of them were good, and he wanted to stop. But dealing with that fact was more complicated than simply sinking back into their friendship.

“Truth or dare?”

Foggy’s quiet was as good as a raised eyebrow and it lasted all through him repositioning in his chair and settling his elbows against the table. “Truth.”

Matt smiled again.

**

“Truth or dare?” Foggy asked.

Hours had passed and it was late, creeping up on bedtime, but Foggy didn’t want to move. His and Matt’s game had gotten lazy and comfortable, more like a conversation with prompts than what it had been before with Karen.

He kept thinking about going behind the bar and tracking down a bottle his family wouldn’t miss. It just felt like the kind of night to get comfortably fuzzy.

“Truth,” Matt said.

“What did you get on the LSAT?” Foggy had wondered for years, and it didn’t matter but he couldn’t help wanting to know anyway.

“173.” Matt answered, with more than a hint of pride, both of which basically confirmed what Foggy had already assumed.

“Go us, 172,” he replied, less smug but still satisfied that Matt didn’t seem surprised. And Foggy didn’t think they could turn this into a conversation, so he sat back and said, “Your turn.”

Matt paused to think about it, and outside rain lashed against the window, beating steadily against the glass. The streetlights got blurry in the downpour and filled the street with an orange glow—when he could see anything beyond the rain. Even the other noise from the city seemed muted. Looked like they weren’t going home anytime soon.

“What’s the most significant magic you’ve had directed at you?”

Foggy felt his heart stutter.

Matt asked it the same way Foggy had asked about the LSAT, but it was so different and Foggy had to take a long moment to figure out what his answer was. In the next second, Matt’s eyebrows rose over his glasses, so Foggy guessed something was coming through in his heartbeat or something.

“I had my future told,” Foggy said. Blurted. “With one of those dumb kids’ games, but my cousin said words over it so the little fortune was true. Not that it had enough information to actually tell me anything, so I’m still not sure what it means.”

“Ah, that’s the danger of fortune-telling isn’t it?” Matt asked. Something in his voice was off, though. It was too heavy, but Foggy couldn’t figure out why that would be. The smile on his face was strange too.

“Good Catholic boy like you, I wouldn’t think you knew anything about it.” Matt shrugged. “You’re probably right, though. I’ve been working on the meaning for years and I still don’t have anything.”

_Past_

Matt wanted to quit Landman and Zack, and Foggy wondered when his stomach had relocated to his knees. All he knew was that his best friend, his future, wanted to leave a dream internship. Sure, it was over morals, but Foggy had gotten used to the idea of a regular paycheck.

“Come on, Fogs.” Matt’s voice wasn’t quite pleading, but he was speaking to Foggy’s better angels. “You’re no happier, really. Think of all the good we could do if we had the chance. Isn’t that what we always wanted?”

Goddammit. Matt was serious if he was going for the low blows. That left Foggy one option, and if the angel on his shoulder cheered that was only beside the point.

He wasn’t even sure he was thinking of the fortune. If anything, it just confirmed what Foggy felt.

As soon as he’d really gotten to know him, Foggy had decided he would do everything in his power to make Matthew Murdock happy, and to keep him in his life. Fortune or not, Matt filled out his empty spaces and reminded him—constantly—that Foggy maybe had more to offer than just his sense of humor.

When Matt’s face lit up after Foggy agreed to leave, sparks shot through his belly, just like they’d been doing for the past year or so.

Which was…something else entirely and not worth deciphering at the moment. 

Matt was his future. He didn’t know what it meant exactly, but he didn’t need a fortune teller to order him to hang on.

_Past_

Sometimes Foggy looked at Matt and he couldn’t believe his luck.

Sometimes he looked at him and wanted to strangle him.

This was one of the latter times.

“You’re being stubborn,” Foggy said. “You know you’re wrong, but you’re just being a dick because you won’t admit it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It was incredible how innocent he could sound, and how much Foggy loved it underneath the hatred for it.

It was in-between moments like this that Foggy clung to when shit hit the fan again. Moments like this they were just Nelson and Murdock, best friends against the world. Foggy just had to ignore the blood now.

“I can’t believe you’re saying that while bleeding. Surely you can feel that with your super senses.”

Matt rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to get into it, so Foggy interfered by pushing an icepack at him.

“Look,” Foggy said. “Just hold that against your head and tell me what happened while I make you something to eat. Before you argue, know that your body needs to recover after intense physical activity which means carbs, protein, fat. So justify yourself while I put all of those things together.”

To his surprise, Matt listened. His shoulders came down from around his ears and he trailed Foggy to the kitchen. More surprising, after a few moments of silence, he did talk, and his voice was fire and the sensation of being burned.

It was the sensation Foggy had first felt as a first-year law student. But this time it had the added effect of joining with the sparks going off in his chest. He had to put thought into breathing.

While he spread peanut butter on a piece of toast, Foggy watched Matt’s face and got a little lost in the earnest, resolute, impassioned expression. Suddenly Foggy sympathized a bit with every jury they’d been in front of, while at the same time thanking God again that they had Matt’s oratory in their corner.

It wasn’t until later, when the talk had died down that Foggy realized he’d fallen all the way in love with his best friend.

_Present_

Foggy focused on the man across the table from him. The last couple of years had been _hard_ , with more emotional ups and downs than he could have imagined when he set eyes on Matt Murdock at that college party.

But.

But he didn’t regret any of it. Wouldn’t go through it again, but couldn’t bring himself to rue any minute.

Striking off with Matthew Murdock had led to heartbreak, yeah, but it had also led to a self-assurance he hadn’t owned before, satisfaction that he was taking care of his neighbors and it had taken him on a hell of a ride to learn what he could handle. With the dust settling, he could appreciate all of that now.

He shook his head to get back on task. “Truth or dare?”

**

Matt chose truth, and Foggy hummed while he considered his question.

He’d been quiet for a while after his answer, but while it had put Matt on edge, there really wasn’t a reason. It hadn’t been bad or uncomfortable, just weighted. It had meant more than their silences had in a while.

Matt knew better than to ask what the reason was, especially with the sound of Foggy’s heart beating a little too fast in his ears. He picked up the smell of cortisol and sweat, too.

Still.

“Truth, and I’m guessing your fortune’s come true?” It was the best explanation, and the other option was asking how bad it was.

Foggy paused before he answered and his heartbeat settled in the meantime. “I think so,” he said, voice soft and shaped around something of a smile. “Anyway, what’s the best news you’ve ever gotten?”

And now it was Matt’s turn to pause. He could keep it light. Say it was his acceptance into Columbia, learning he passed the bar or finding out they got the office for the first iteration of Nelson & Murdock.

But the smell of good food and the weight of it in his belly, the way the room was warm simply because it was the two of them inside and a chill outside, and the steady drumbeat of rain on the pavement and the buildings gave Matt a different idea.

Besides, he’d chosen truth. And he didn’t want to hide it so much from Foggy anymore. He wanted to be different.

“That I have a soulmate.” Matt’s smile on the tail-end of the phrase was automatic. How many times had he reminded himself of that through the years? Like a mantra, a constant background knowledge that helped him bear everything else.

“Wow. I mean, wow, when did you hear that?” Foggy sat up straighter and he sounded strangely nervous again.

“I was fifteen. A random guy grabbed me and told me I have the aura of having a soulmate. He didn’t explain what that means or how I’d know I found them, but he was adamant. I’ve never minded, either.” Sometimes the idea of something was better than reality anyway. If life over the past few years had taught him anything, it was that.

And the idea was worth so much.

_Past_

The promise of his soulmate kept Matt going. Through shitty foster parents, shitty classmates and teachers who didn’t know how to handle a blind kid, the stress of AP classes and the daunting process of applying to college and for financial aid. And then, the LSAT and law school applications and more financial aid.

After his dad had died, Matt had felt a dark pit open up inside of him, underneath him, around him. It had ripped deeper when Stick left, and clumps from the bottom and sides fell away a little more every time he returned to the orphanage after another foster family.

Instead of sinking, Matt thought about his soulmate. Held on because that was solid, steady ground.

He still didn’t know how to find them or how to tell, but he had some theories, and some fantasies about what life with his soulmate would be like.

  1. Matt’s soulmate would be there, just there. In his life. They wouldn’t leave.
  2. His soulmate would care, would want to be around. They would want _him_.
  3. And his soulmate would understand. Of course. They’d listen and try to understand his senses and his call to protect people who couldn’t fight for themselves. And they’d understand the darkness in Matt—the devil—that even he hadn’t brought himself to fully touch.
  4. It wouldn’t be so hard with his soulmate.



Matt tried to do some research, but soulmates were tricky. They weren’t commonly predicted by any form of magic, and some people thought only a few kinds of stronger magic could do it at all. Not everyone had a soulmate, either; they weren’t necessarily rare, but it wasn’t something people grew up expecting.

What information Matt could find, he consumed. Some people felt it like fire burning through them when they met their soulmates, some knew what the other person would say before they spoke for the first time, some started hearing their soulmate’s thoughts.

Matt imagined how it might play with his senses; recognizing his soulmate’s heartbeat, being able to track them wherever they were, knowing their scent and every nuanced change.

He wanted it with everything he was.

And he’d wanted Elektra with everything he was.

Meeting her felt like getting struck by lightning, and Matt had been sure she was it. Until she left him with blood sticking to his knuckles, slowly coating the room with its stench.

His soulmate wouldn’t leave him, and they wouldn’t wait years to come back.

_Present_

“Wow,” Foggy said again. “One of my cousins has a soulmate, but he never said anything before they got together so who knows if he’s telling the truth. They’re kind of rare, right?”

Matt nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with a soulmate. That always made it seem more special to me.”

And that was the heart of it. If he had a soulmate, he wanted them, wanted that chance very few people got. It was why he’d never had a long-term relationship. Why stretch something out he knew wouldn’t last?

“I’ve never met mine either.” The only real candidate so far had died. Twice. And he knew now that the rushing, struck-by-lightning feeling only applied the first time they’d met. He’d loved Elektra, but she wasn’t his soulmate.

At Foggy’s questioning noise, Matt told him as much.

Which led to a whole other problem regarding the only other person he’d wanted so much.

_Past_

Matt’s insides were squirming, and it wasn’t just the alcohol. It was Foggy’s conviction, his confidence, the love in his voice when he talked about the law firm they would start. Matt ran his fingers over and over the indents on the napkin.

“Sounds like we’re getting married,” Matt mumbled, mostly because he couldn’t deal with these feelings if he didn’t try to lighten them.

This happened sometimes. Foggy would say or do something and his voice would warm up, his heart would be the steadiest rhythm in Matt’s ears, and Matt could feel the ground under his feet, stable and strong.

Moments like that made Matt want to kiss him, and he knew the only way to avoid that was to joke about it.

He wondered sometimes if Foggy could be his soulmate, and he stretched every one of his senses for a sign. _What kind of person can’t tell who their soulmate is?_

It never worked, nothing changed, but that didn’t stop Matt falling in love just a little more every time they had moments like this.

And he knew that could only end badly whenever he _did_ find his soulmate.

_Past_

Matt barely registered the in-and-out of the needle. His heart felt like it was still tearing out of his chest because of how close Poindexter had gotten to Foggy.

He didn’t even have the mental bandwidth to handle the howling rage he knew was waiting for him. So he focused on Sister Maggie and the job ahead of him instead.

It wasn’t until later that wrapped his head around the fact that—for an instant—when Foggy had seen him he hadn’t just been relieved, he’d felt _safe_. It had echoed in his breathing and the shift in his body language. If Foggy had told him he trusted him, Matt wouldn’t have been half as convinced.

And knowing his friend, he wasn’t going anywhere for this fight, even though Matt was sure Foggy was in third place when it came to Fisk’s priorities. This would just light a fire under him. And as much as it made Matt grit his teeth, he had always loved Foggy’s willingness to fight.

Everything else in Matt’s world was crumbling, but this time Foggy was familiar. And he obviously still cared, wasn’t angry anymore, and that made Matt warmer than he expected.

And of course there was the bloom of warmth when he remembered Foggy’s arms around him, making him laugh for a second.

He hadn’t felt this solid in months.

_Present_

“My turn, right?” Matt could tell from Foggy’s posture and his pattern of breathing that he wanted to talk more about Matt’s soulmate, and Matt wanted anything else.

“Sure, shoot.”

“When did you forgive me?” He’d been approaching and resisting the temptation to ask that question all night. The ragged sound of Foggy’s inhale made him think resistance was the better choice.

But he needed to know.

“Christ, Matty,” Foggy breathed, pushing a hand through his hair. The smell of fading soap and fresher, clean sweat drifted in the air when Matt nodded meekly. He realized he hadn’t even asked which option Foggy wanted.

“You have to know how much I appreciate it,” Matt said. “I really do, and I know it wasn’t easy.”

“No, it was way easier than you’re thinking.”

_Past_

Foggy’s heartbeat was thundering in his ears. He didn’t even have to reach to hear it. And at the same time adrenaline flooded his body, he felt frozen, unable to dodge the pieces of his life fracturing and collapsing around him.

That was dramatic, but it was what it felt like to see Matt’s face under that mask.

He was terrified. And angry, and oddly relieved because at least he finally had an answer about what the hell was going on with Matt—and it was somehow better and worse than he’d imagined. But anger was winning the moment.

Common sense quickly beat it, and Foggy got medical attention, and it wasn’t until Matt was unconscious on his couch and they were alone that the anger came back.

A stray dark thought pushed to the front. Devil’s horns over a scale of justice. Devil’s horns. And that was the last fucking thing Foggy wanted to think about right now. Which meant it was the only thing he could.

His future had always pointed toward Matt, and Foggy had been thrilled. He’d even started to wonder if that future might mean something more than eternal friendship and being platonic soulmates.

But now…

Did it still apply? Was the fortune just telling him ‘here’s a thing that’ll happen/a person you’ll meet in your future,’ or was it literally a symbol of an established centerpiece of his future? Were things going to get worse?

Foggy was only really sure of the answer to the last one.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted. It didn’t help, neither did pacing and neither did glaring at Matt’s stupid, beautiful, bloody face. 

Talking to the dumb asshole didn’t help either, so Foggy left before anything else had to burn down.

_Present_

“And I did it in stages. First, after I found everything out. You should remember that. Then after everything that happened with the Castle case.”

“When did you forgive that one?”

Foggy had to pause to think. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment.

_Past_

After a certain point, the anger faded away, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be the bigger person and tell Matt about that.

Instead, they talked and didn’t work together and were polite and distant and Foggy hated everything about it. Even as he thrived and genuinely believed in letting Matt make his own choices.

Foggy religiously followed the case with the disabled boy, and he congratulated Matt on the victory but didn’t offer to go out for drinks. And purposely didn’t notice Matt’s failure to bring it up either.

He hadn’t stopped thinking about those goddamn devil’s horns or that goddamn scale of justice. Research hadn’t helped either. Cootie catchers were weak magic, even if it was true, and no one could tell him what cootie catcher fortunes generally meant.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and it felt like more than just fixation.

Simply, Matt was part of him, part of his life, and he was getting really tired of not having him around. Maybe the fortune had clued him in, but Foggy’s feelings had developed independent from it, and they’d been established by the time he thought about the possible connection. He was beginning to think it didn’t matter what the fortune meant exactly. Maybe it only mattered that it was right. Matt belonged with him.

Of course, it took a call to the police station—hooray for emergency contacts—to bring them face-to-face. That’s how things went with Matt nowadays.

And Matt…he was shaken. So much so Foggy couldn’t bring himself to actually be pissed about the return of Daredevil. And then the building exploded and two people failed to walk out.

Foggy had decided he wasn’t pissed anymore and he had to hope Matt had died knowing that.

_Present_

“It happened before Midland Circle,” Foggy said quietly. Matt’s face turned toward him and his eyebrows disappeared behind the rims of his glasses. “Please, please tell me you knew that.”

“I guessed when you brought the suit.” Matt started smiling and Foggy took a deep breath.

“I figured out that you knew—know—who you are and mostly what you need. And I’m along for the ride because I’d rather be hitched to your crazy train than miss it all.” Foggy’s voice shook and he was even more aware of the fact that they were alone, and the dim lights around them were the only illumination and the rain had the rhythm of a thousand heartbeats.

“You were my fortune,” he said, even quieter.

Matt stilled, straightened and looked for all intents and purposes like he was listening for an attack. The smile slipped off his face. It made Foggy want to check the windows. “What?” Matt’s voice was breathless.

Though he knew it was probably his imagination, Foggy heard his own heartbeat, drowning out the thousands outside.

“The fortune teller game told me you were my future. A little picture of devil’s horns over the scales of justice.”

Matt opened and closed his mouth before opening it again. Since no sound came out, Foggy filled the silence.

“I’ve never known what it meant exactly, but it’s always been you.”

_Present_

Matt could hear a rushing sound. A dull roar filling his ears and his head. Time felt like it sped up and like it stopped.

Shortly after meeting him, Foggy Nelson had become the most important person in Matt’s life.

Lying to him hurt—even when it worked, when he wanted it to work—where before Matt had only felt a faint “maybe this is wrong.”

And when things got hard, and Matt started regularly landing on Claire’s couch, he’d wanted the comfort Foggy had always provided. He’d wanted to confess everything, and having Claire and Father Lantom for outlets was probably the only thing keeping him back.

On top of all of that, though, came a heavy helping of guilt, new and different from the run-of-the-mill variety he’d gotten used to.

Because if Matt was in love with Foggy, what the hell happened when he met his soulmate?

But now…now…Matt’s thoughts tumbled over themselves.

As the silence stretched, Matt felt the erratic bounce of Foggy’s right leg through the top of the table, and the small vibrations of his drumming fingers sank into his skin. He could imagine how fast his heart must be beating.

Foggy didn’t know what his future meant, but it was Matt.

 _What kind of person can’t tell who their soulmate is?_

Matt hoped it wasn’t his kind, and then he was on the other side of the table in an instant. He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d gotten there, but he thought he’d gone over the top. All he knew was this sudden clarity.

“Foggy.” Matt still wasn’t quite able to pick apart everything he could hear, but he knew it was his hands trembling. Foggy’s breath was shaking, Matt was close enough to feel it on his skin. “Foggy,” he repeated, quieter. Foggy nodded.

Matt had given a lot of thought to how he would tell who his soulmate was. He expected it to be fierce, sharp and upon meeting. Instead, it was a low warmth that flooded his body in one rush. It was like recognition and like coming home after a long day. Like a warm meal, the joy of fighting, of knowing he was doing the right thing.

It was the way Matt always felt with Foggy.

Kissing Foggy brought the storm, and the sensation met and combined with the rush so Matt was as overwhelmed as he could remember being in his adult life.

Now that he understood the significance, those omnipresent feelings were amplified and the ground under him didn’t shift an inch. Everything was right.

When the kiss broke, Matt didn’t let Foggy go far, absorbing everything about him. His heartbeat, his scent, his solid presence.

“Truth or dare?” Foggy’s words ghosted over his face and Matt smiled. His chest swelled fit to burst, and he was feeling so many emotions he ran out of names for all of them.

“Dare,” he replied.

Foggy huffed, but it sounded far too fond for Matt to take it seriously. Especially not when Foggy’s hand came up to card through the hair on the side of Matt’s head.

“Fine,” he fake-grumbled. “Tell me I’m your soulmate, and that’s why you’re my future.”

Matt grinned. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of doing that.


End file.
